Saint Peter's fair: At the great annual fair of Saint Peter at Shrewsbury, a quarrel breaks out between the local burghers and the monks from the Benedictine monastery. Afterwards a merchant is found dead

The leper of Saint Giles: A marriage has been arranged between an aging nobleman and a very young woman, ill-matched but coerced by greedy guardians. When both parties arrive in Shrewsbury, a savage killing leads Brother Cadfael to the leper house of Saint Giles - a possible refuge for the hunted man

The virgin in the ice: Winter, 1139, and civil war has sent many refugees north, among them two orphans of a noble family and their companion, a nun. But they seem to have disappeared in the wild winter landscape of frost and snow - a Cadfael sets out to find them